Nvidia boasts of record revenue

Nvidia has announced record revenue for the first quarter of its financial year, but it comes with a warning: The cryptocurrency boom that has buoyed the company's high-end graphics card sales may be coming to an end.

Filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late last night, Nvidia's filing paints a picture of incredible growth: $3.2 billion in revenue for the first quarter of its 2019 financial year is a whopping 66 percent over the same period last year, and while its operating expenses have gone up 30 percent in the same time frame that growth has allowed the company to show a net income of $1.244 billion - 145 percent higher than the first quarter last year. Even the company's profit margin has grown, rising from 59.4 percent a year ago to a more than healthy 64.5 percent this year.

'We had a strong quarter with growth across every platform,' says Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder and chief executive officer, of the impressive results. 'Our data centre business achieved another record and gaming remained strong. At the heart of our opportunity is the incredible growth of computing demand of AI, just as traditional computing has slowed. The GPU computing approach we have pioneered is ideal for filling this vacuum. And our invention of the Tensor Core GPU has further enhanced our strong position to power the AI era.'

Much of the company's profits, though, can be traced to its gaming-centric products: Of the company's revenue, gaming graphics cards represented $1.7 billion, while data centre products accounted for only $700 million. The results also came with a warning: Sales of graphics cards to cryptocurrency miners, which was a significant contributor in the both revenue and average selling price, are likely to drop with Nvidia predicting a loss in demand of two-thirds for the next quarter - good news for gamers, who may see an end to stock shortages and sky-high pricing, but not so healthy for Nvidia's bottom line.